


The Road Less Travelled

by azryal



Series: Travellers [6]
Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Dreamsharing, M/M, Psychic Bond, Rare Pairings, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 08:26:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1851274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azryal/pseuds/azryal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lorne is gone and Angel is missing. Lindsey comes to Wesley for help, on the advise of a dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Road Less Travelled

**Author's Note:**

> This one is through Lindsey's POV, hence, the road less travelled....
> 
> Takes place after season 3 finale.

I don’t remember the drive across Nevada being quite so long, but I wasn’t quite so scared then. I’ve never been so scared in my life. 

There’s two days of road all over me. I smell like sweat and coffee and cheap hot dogs. I’m shaking, running on pure adrenaline now that the Mini Thins have worn off. I feel faintly sick from the headache right behind my left eye. My nerves are raw and tight and ready to snap at any moment. I need a shower and some sleep and some real food, but I don’t have the time. 

Oh, God. Please open the door. 

“Yes?” The voice is low, far lower than I remember. There’s a rasp to it that indicates the injury, the slice to the throat that scarred and damaged. 

“Wesley Wyndham-Price?” I ask, my own voice slurred from exhaustion. 

“Who is it?” Ah, the accent is the same; crisp, clipped, somehow reassuring. 

I have to lean on the door jam, holding myself up with my left arm and putting pressure on my forehead as the ache spreads and becomes sharp, stunning pain. It fades, but leaves me nauseous and weak. I straighten, forcing the sickness down, and answer. “Wesley…it’s Lindsey McDonald. It’s an emergency.”

The door swings open, and his startled eyes greet mine. He looks at me carefully; studying my face for a long moment before taking in my rumpled, weekend old clothes. Then he leans closer, over me, and casts wary glances in either direction down the hall. “What do you want?” he asks, finally, returning his attention to me. 

“Lorne’s missing.” 

He stares at me. His eyes blink once, twice, and then a soft gleam of regret shines in their deep blue. “I’m sorry, Lindsey. I don’t work for Angel anymore. You should try…” 

“Angel’s missing, too. Since the beginning of summer. Those two at the Hyperion don’t know their asses from holes in the ground. I need  **you**.” I pause for a moment, watching his face go blank and his eyes lose focus for just an instant. “Listen, I know what happened. Lorne told me everything about you and Angel, and Connor. Please, don’t let that stop you now. Don’t let that keep you from helping Lorne, or me. Please. Something is really wrong.” 

“Missing…” he says, repeating the word in a sort of shocked whisper. He steps aside, allowing me to enter, makes one more furtive survey of the hall, and closes the door. 

The lights are very dim in here, and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. It’s a little too warm and stuffy, both of which are joining with my extreme fatigue and the ephedrine comedown to make me dizzy and unsteady. Wesley bumps into me as he turns, and my balance is gone. I tilt back, hands flailing out to catch myself but I’m just not fast enough. I fall, right on my ass. 

I shake off the swimming in my head. There’s a strong hand on my arm, and I’m pulled back to my feet. I feel too much like shit to be embarrassed. “I’m sorry…I left on Thursday. I’ve been driving…” 

“When was the last time you slept?” he asks, guiding me to his incredibly comfortable looking sofa. 

“Uh, I took a nap at a truck stop. Friday night. Had bad dreams, so I started driving again after about an hour.”

 Wesley swears under his breath. “Stay awake long enough to tell me what you know. Then you’ll need to rest, or you’ll be no good to anyone.” 

“Las Vegas. Lorne went to Vegas. He had issues with Angel’s…son.” I can’t help but spit out that last word. Wesley doesn’t say anything, so I keep going. “He was working for a friend, a guy named Rundolf and he said he might have to take a second job…and that was the last I heard.” 

Looking thoughtful, Wesley asks, “And this was?” 

My head feels like it’s filled with concrete. It’s heavy and solid and hard to hold up. “Two weeks ago.” The television in front of me seems to tilt on its side and gets less and less substantial… 

“Lindsey!” 

I jump with a gasp. My heart is pounding, my hand has grabbed the front of Wesley’s shirt, and I have in my other an empty plastic water bottle. Its contents have spilled out over my hand and on the legs of my jeans. He pries my fingers open, talking to me in that quiet, unflappably British way, until I settle back down on the couch. “You are sleep deprived, Lindsey. As soon as you fall asleep you will go immediately into REM state. I’m going to help you to my bed. I want you to try to remember your dreams, try as hard as you can. From what just happened, I think your dreams may give us vital information.” 

“What happened?” I’m slurring badly, and I can’t walk without his support. I feel drunk, stupid, and out of control. 

“You told me you where you were. You told me you were Angel.” 

_The sun is bright, the sand pale yellow, and my tan feet stirring little circles in the grains…_

_Ah, paradise._

_“Angel!”_

_I look over my shoulder and smile at her as she comes towards me. She’s a goddess, her short sarong low on her hips, exposing lots of stomach and thigh. And there will never be enough thanks for topless beaches. She hands me another coconut, smiling coquettishly as she steals the cherry and orange slice for herself. “Are you trying to get me drunk, Cordy?”_

_Her eyes sparkle with laughter. “You betcha! Drink up!”_

_I chuckle and take a sip of pineapple rum and coconut milk…_

_…but it tastes like the ocean…_  

_I blink and I’m back in my own skin again, my own dirty clothes. I’m looking down at Angel; tanned, aged, human – and he’s staring at me with such fury it forces me back a step. “What the hell are you doing here, Lindsey?”_

_I’m in a white, glowing room. There is a columned gateway and two gilded people in iridescent black togas. Angel is at their feet, naked and shivering, back to his pale and vampiric self. He’s begging, pleading so desperately that I feel my heart lurch. He extends his hand to the woman, a twin of her male companion, but she does nothing but look down on him with an utter lack of emotion._

_“We have sent you help and you turn it away. What more would you have us do?”_

_He raises his head and looks at me again. He lifts his hand to me. “Please,” he says, and I start to cry. I reach out to him, but my vision begins to dim._

_“Please.”_  

_I can taste my tears and they fill my mouth and my lungs. I can’t see and I can’t move and all there is…is the endless darkness._

And then I’m choking, sputtering and retching as a force from above presses my lungs. 

“Lindsey! Lindsey, breathe!” 

My chest hurts. I grab Wesley’s wrists to stop the compressions and take a deep gulp of air. I can’t get enough of it and just lie there panting while Wesley tells me it will be all right, to calm down, to breathe slowly, all in that soothing tone only Englishmen can manage.  He's good at this, at giving comfort. Could this be the real reason Angel cast him out? That without thought Wesley would try to ease another’s pain? Even under the circumstances, even under extreme duress Angel never knew how to accept comfort, and, though he was the unintentional cause, Wesley was the sort who couldn't stop himself from offering. Angel’s fool, until it nearly killed him.

 I push these realizations aside and gladly accept his help in sitting up. Coughing, still tasting salt water, I ask him, “What the hell's going on, Wesley? What’s happening to me?”

 

 

“So, you started having these dreams, when?” Wes asks, his name now shortened at his request. 

We’re sitting at his small kitchen table, me wrapped in a warm blanked, clean and sweet smelling again, but still so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.

“Probably around the same time Lorne disappeared. At least ten days ago, of that I am sure. That was when they started getting bad,” I say, taking a sip of hot, very sweet tea. I needed something to wash the cold, briny taste out of my mouth.

He’s scribbling notes on a pad, not looking at me. “Describe ‘bad’. Bad as in frightening? Or bad as in life threatening?” 

Taking a deep breath, appreciating the recycled air more than ever, I tell him, “My life was never threatened until tonight. They haven’t all been frightening. Some of them were…sad. Awful, really.” I look away, not ready to face him with the memory of Angel’s despair fresh in my heart.  "I’ve seen Buffy Summers, Spike, Xander, all these names and faces I knew from his files, but…seeing them…what he did….” 

Wes stops writing.

“I saw Connor.” 

Saying the name brings more tears to my eyes. I see the same in Wes’.

Nodding, Wes says, “I believe The Powers That Be are determined to use you as a contact, a way to have Angel rescued. It is up to us to figure out how. These dreams, which have now advanced to visions, sound to me like Angel’s psyche trying to meld with yours. I think he has been given a way to communicate.” His voice is low and calm, his manner cool and professional, but his hands won’t stop shaking. “Unfortunately, when the lines of communication are open, you and he are having a shared experience. Hence, you are breathing the water he breathes, he is hearing and seeing through you in return.” 

He won’t look at me. 

“I saw you.” 

“Lindsey, please,” he says, his voice soft but powerful in its misery. 

I move on, remembering more faces, more names. “I saw Rupert Giles. I was looking through Angel’s eyes when he broke his fingers.” 

“Enough, Lindsey.”  He takes a deep breath and focuses on what he has written down. “What you are seeing are both dreams and memories. Can you tell the difference?” 

I think back, working though each of the images. They are so random and so short, it takes me several minutes to realize the only time I could feel something different. “Some of them are more…immediate, more real. I see through his eyes for their entirety, I can’t separate me from Angel.” 

“I’ll wager those are the memories, and that they will be the key. This will be tricky.”  He looks at me, finally, but it’s happening again. 

There’s a great rushing in my ears, followed by intense pressure that sends sharp, piercing pain through the drums. I hold my head, gritting my teeth and groaning from the sensation.

_Fingers close on my arms and I open my eyes, but it’s dark again and I can’t even see past my nose._

_“What are you doing here?”_

_My eyes don’t want to leave him, cradled as he is by white sheets and white pillows and the arms of Mother Morpheus. I turn to face Cordelia, her fury and disbelief at my presence plain in her eyes._

_"I heard about Wesley."_

_"Well, that's great.  Too bad it takes a gunshot wound to make you give a crap. Wesley doesn't need you right now. **We**  don't need you. You walked away. Do us a favor and just stay away." _

_Stay away. Stay away._

_“This isn't Angelus talking. It's me, Angel. You know that, right?"_

_“Angel!”_

_Wesley’s voice. How can that be? He can’t talk. All he can do is lie there and let me kill him._

_“You took my son! You took my son!”_

Then I’m standing next to Wes as he cradles me to the floor. Disoriented, I call his name repeatedly, trying to make him hear me as we watch my body vomit up copious amounts of water. My hands are clutching his shirt, my legs kicking with the effort of trying to breathe. I’m watching myself die. 

“No! Not yet!”  Wesley screams. 

Back again, in my body and drowning, fighting. Losing. 

“Angel! Let him go! You’re killing him!” 

And I can breathe. 

Wesley stares down at me, his eyes wide and fearful. “We have to work quickly. You will have to trust me, Lindsey. Trust me now or it could be the end for both of you.” 

With effort, I repeat, “Both of us?” He’s still holding me and we’re both wet, both panting and shaking. He nods, his mouth tight and turned down. I take a deep breath and spasm into a coughing fit, pressing my face into his chest and holding on as another lungful of water comes up. 

“Lorne…” I choke out, reminding him why I’m here in the first place. 

I feel his palm skim over my hair. “I know. Unfortunately, your best bet for finding Lorne, is saving Angel.” 

“You gotta…be kiddin’ me.” 

“I’m not.” He sits me up, bending me at the waist to encourage any left over water to exit my chest. “In fact, I think, perhaps, that you wouldn’t live to find him yourself. This is a very determined bit of magic, and you are its target. For whatever reason, you have been chosen to be Angel’s savior.” 

“Just fuckin’ great,” I mumble, leaning over my crossed legs.

 

 

Deep meditation. Hypnotism. Spirit channeling.

Wes goes through the list of ways I could let Angel in. He’s determined that my natural strength and innate resistance is why I was chosen. He also thinks that it’s why I nearly die every time Angel tries to come through. He’s working under the assumption that I’ll have another…what? attack? seizure?…in the very near future, so he has to work quickly. His theory is that I need to lower my guard, to relax and let Angel in. If not, knowing Angel, he’ll force his way into my psyche, forcing mine out in the process. 

I’m beyond exhausted, in some strange, almost meditative state that has my body limp and my brain firing like a super charged engine. I’m lying down in Wes’ bed and staring up at his shadowed ceiling. I don’t think the sheets have been washed in a long time and probably need to be, but it doesn’t bother me. It’s a musky, guy smell, something I don’t think I have ever associated with Wesley. He always looked like he smelled like tea, or maybe fabric softener. This is the smell of night sweats, of the booze seeping from his pores during drunken dreams, and unmistakably of sex. Well, yeah, look at the guy. I doubt he goes without sex unless he wants to. 

My mind wanders, lingering briefly on the idea that Wesley sleeps here, that he has sex here, and I wonder with whom. A fast edit of images plays in my head; Wes and Cordelia, Wes and that skinny girl from the hotel, Wesley and Angel…that one puts a smile on my face. Why can’t Angel let me see things like that? No, he has to send scenes of torture and distress. Thanks, asshole. 

Though, I have to admit, that would be interesting. It's the one thing I haven’t seen since all this began, like he’s stored all those things away in an untouchable place. Which is a real shame, if you ask me. I’ll bet he has some great stuff tucked back in that secret garden. He could throw me a bone, no pun intended, and let me in on his last night with Darla. At least then I’d know what all the fuss was about. I’m not nearly as resentful about it as I used to be. It might be fun, if I didn’t drown before the last encore. I snort, finding this train of thought strangely amusing. I start to talk to Angel, asking him to change the channel for my viewing pleasure. 

The stress and fatigue must be hitting a new peak because my inner voice starts to answer met. ‘Like what?’ it questions. 

I almost giggle. “How about,” I say, speaking out loud to the empty room, “one time, just one, when you didn’t hate me. Or you could just let me be you while you screw Darla. Take your pick.” My eyes have closed. I think I’m about to pass out. 

I don’t think anything of it. In fact, I am so close to asleep, that I think maybe I am dreaming. Rushing noises come at me, and the pressure is back on my ears and chest, but I don’t panic this time.

_When my eyes blink the darkness away, I’m looking at the back of my truck._

_And there’s Lindsey, placing his duffel and guitar case in the bed. “If you’re here to kill me, grab ya a ticked and get in line.”_

_Not this time. “I really like this truck. ’56, right? First year they had the wrap-around windshield,” I pause for a beat, not looking at him. His eyes are too…bright. Too honest. After all this time, to see them unshielded puts me at a serious disadvantage. I chide myself, repeating over and over not to say anything stupid, not to sound like a jerk. “You know, back in the fifties we all thought life was gonna be like in The Jetsons by now. Air cars, robots- I’d love to have an air car. Wouldn’t that be cool?”_

_Oh, there’s a bit of genius for you. Cordelia’s right, I am a dork._

_Lindsey’s eyes are still shining up at me, looking for something in my face. “So, you’re here to talk me to death.”_

_Smart-ass. It’s hard not to smile back at him. “Nah, I just came here to say, things don’t always work out like you think. I bet Wolfram and Hart aren’t too happy losing one of their best and brightest.” Nice save, Angel. Not too nerdy._

_I watch the truck rumble away, smiling at my little joke. I half expect him to come back and challenge me over the “Cops Suck” sign and the trouble it’s sure to cause him. Expect, want, wait…still waiting when smarmy Gavin comes into the hotel to threaten with papers and legal bullshit. Still waiting when I come back from Pylea. Still waiting when I come back from Nepal. Still waiting and waiting and waiting…_

_“…been waiting for this for a long time, haven’t you?”_

_Oh, the heat and the softness, the tight, tight grip on my cock as I dip my tongue behind an earlobe. Sweet to taste and the squirming against my groin as I nip that little lobe of flesh makes me come. I rear back, tense for a long moment and groaning through the pleasure. Looking back down, I smile into those warm, crimson eyes and say, “Longer than you can imagine.”_

_He smiles back, so oddly handsome and irresistibly compelling. “So have I. Was it worth the wait, Angel?”_  

Angel?

I’m upright; hand over my pounding heart as if I have to keep it from lurching out of my chest. Lorne? Angel and Lorne? If that was a memory and that followed the memory before it then that means that Angel and Lorne did it after I left.

And I don’t really want to think about what that means. 

Before my brain has time to wrap around what it just saw, to truly comprehend what I just experienced, I hear voices. There is a sudden surge in volume, followed by a slamming door and then Wesley yells, “You never told me he was missing!” 

“What the hell do you care? You don’t work for him anymore, you work for us.” 

Oh, God. That’s Lilah.

 “I never accepted your offer, and I never will. Now. Get. Out.” The anger in Wes’ voice is cold, smothering his accent with its ice. 

I hear the soft steps of Lilah’s heels on the carpeted floor. “Really? My performance record at the office has never been higher since I started stress relief with you. You'veu have been working for the Firm the entire time you’ve been pinning me to the mattress.” 

I recognize that tone, that insinuation. Wesley? And Lilah? I slept in that? I feel a little sick. What if she finds me here? What if Wes turns me over to her? To Wolfram and Hart? I’m backing away from the door, but where am I going to go? Panic starts my heart racing, my palms sweating. I move quietly to the window, hoping for escape, but there are bars on the outside. Barefoot and shirtless, how far would I get even if there weren’t any? 

Their words grow soft, indistinct, and I hear glasses tinkling and furniture shifting. I’m glad, because I don’t want to hear anymore. I’ve never really felt betrayed, not even after Darla left. It’s a new feeling for me. It makes me question my actions; coming back here, to Wesley even after I found out what happened. Knowing now that I made a mistake, and so quickly on the heels of hearing Lorne say Angel’s name in just that way… 

There’s crashing in the living room, and someone is shoved against the closed door. “You know where he is.” 

Lilah’s laughing. I hate her. God, I hate her. “Not exactly. Oh, we know he’s around a mile below sea level, but we don’t have the right coordinates. If we did, do you think I’d tell you? Come on, I’m not stupid.” 

I want to hear what Wesley says, but my vision starts to darken, and that pressure is back on my ears. ‘NO!’ I think desperately, on the odd chance that Angel really can hear me. ‘Not now, or I won’t be able to help!’ But it doesn’t work. 

_Black, heavy and cold. So cold._

_Ah, I can feel her shaking. “The game. - It's actually kind of fun when you know the rules.  I mean, when you know - that there aren't any.” I can’t resist; I tap her shoulder just to get her to jump. “You screw with me, and you screw with me, and…you screw with me. And now, I get to screw with you."_

_She can’t think of anything better to say than, “Uhhh…” I bet Lindsey would have had something great to twang back at me. She just sits there with her hands on her steering wheel and looks like a deer in headlights._

_“It's gonna be great!”_

_"Angel, please..."_

_"No. No. No. No. The begging - that comes later."_

_Lindsey would never beg._

_God, did Lilah have to hit me right there? Darla’s sword wasn’t enough? I wasn’t going to kill her yet._

_**GottheglovegoforthethroatgogoGO!**  _

_Wow Lindsey hit her! That was almost worth the whole evening, except maybe this landing-face-down-on-the-pavement part. I have the ring, now I get to go to the home office…_

_Lilah’s hair smells like Chanel. "Don't you came at me through Cordelia ever again. You play that card a second time and I'll kill you."_

_She looks rattled as I climb into the Caddy. I’m going to have to do something about that bitch, and do it soon._

_I’m me, in my body. I’m dressed, but I don’t remember wearing this dark blue suit when I fell asleep. It’s so bright here it hurts my eyes and I squint as I look around. There’s a doorway, one I’ve seen before but I can’t quite place where, but that’s all. I can’t determine any walls or windows or anything else as I turn in a slow circle. I loosen my tie and make one more turn, and when I come back around I’m face to face with Angel._

_Startled, I jump away and gasp out loud. He’s soaking wet, rivulets running down his face and neck as if he stood under a shower. His eyes stare at me blindly, but his hands reach out to me with perfect accuracy. “Share.” His voice is wrong, garbled, and disturbing._

_I try like hell to pry his fingers off of my arms, but he’s too strong and his flesh is like slippery ice. I say his name, but water comes up from my lungs again. I feel myself sink to my knees, his cold hands still holding me as the sea voids itself from my body. “Share,” he says again, his gaze more focused, more able to hold mine as he watches me drown._

_It’s not long before the light fades around the edges of my vision, and my feet and hands begin to lose their feeling. I’m lying against his broad chest, crying silently as more and more water pours out of my mouth. He’s been saying “Share” over and over, as if it has meaning to me. His hands shake me, arms prop me this way and that, trying to stop the flow of salt water. He looks desperate, frightened, and remorseful. Just as I slip away, as my consciousness dims, he grabs my head and forces me to look into his eyes._

_“Lorne!”_

_Warm, honey sweet mouth on mine, waking me up from deep, deep slumber. “Mornin’.”_

_Smiling, I stretch and luxuriate in the softness of the expensive sheets surrounding me. “Mornin’. Sleep well?”_

_“Like the dead…oh, wait. That’s your line.”_

The laughter is more like a rumble, and I feel it against my cheek.

I open my eyes, and I’m me again.

My face is pressed to Angel’s chest; it’s his chuckle vibrating my nose and making it itch. “I’m sorry, Lindsey. There wasn’t any other way.”

"Other way?” I repeat, stupidly. I don’t feel my sharpest, to say the least, but I like the feel of him around me so I stay put and wait for him to explain.

“Until we had a shared memory, something personal that we had seen from the same side, I couldn’t truly communicate. We almost had it before, but I think…well, that wasn’t the best way for you to find out.”

“You. Bastard.” I’m still panting, still feeling the effects of my near saturation. “Why me?”

“Would you believe me if I said I don’t know?”

I sit back and look up at him, seeing him dry and smiling. When I look down at myself, also dry and back in my t-shirt and boxers, I can’t help but make a questioning sort of groan and answer, “I don’t know if I believe any of this.”

His hands, strong, wide hands that up until now had almost always hurt me, now have a ginger grasp on my fingers. “Believe it, and listen. I don’t have time to waste, and if you really want me to help you find Lorne, you’re going to need to tell Wesley everything so he can get me out of here.”

“Everything?” How much could I have to remember?

He gives me old-fashioned co-ordinates, going by stars and the moon and the way the wind was blowing. He tells me about the metal box he’s in, and what help will be needed to get him out of it and back onto dry land. He makes sure that Wes knows to bring blood, lots of it, so that Angel won’t eat him in blind hunger when he’s finally freed. Last, he tells me to get out of Los Angeles, that it’s going to be a dangerous place, and that I should wait in Vegas.

“Why Wesley? I thought you hated him now,” I can’t help but ask. We’ve been both on our knees the whole time, and now he helps me stand, steadying me as I gain my equilibrium. We’re still in that white, white room. The mysterious doorway now has a swirling mist just inside the entry, and I can see the darkness beyond. I get the feeling that time is almost up.

“I don’t know that, either. It’s what the Powers wanted. Maybe it’s their way of telling me to stop second guessing them.”

“You must piss them off a lot.”

He smiles, that same ‘Go to Hell’ grin that used to piss me off. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”

“Not arguing with you, there.” We stare at each other for a moment more. Then he nods his head and turns towards the door. “Angel…” I call, and he faces me once more. I don’t really know what else to say. “I…how…what now?” 

He shrugs. “Have Wes get me out of here. After that, your guess is as good as mine.” He looks at me closely, and says, “Look, I probably won’t be this laid back after I’m out. I think I might be crazy. It happens when we starve. Just in case I don’t get a chance to tell you later…thank you.” His dark eyes lower for a moment, and then rise to mine. “And tell Wesley…I know why he did it. It still doesn’t make it right. It still doesn’t make it go away. Tell him…” 

His pause is full of too many things to say in the narrowing window we have. “I can make up a dirty limerick, or something,” I offer. 

He smiles. “Gotta go. I’m sorry…” 

That cold, painful pressure on my ears begins and my world goes black.

 

 _Ow. Ow, ow, ow!_  

“One, two, three, four, five.”

There’s a mouth on mine, tasting of desperation and whiskey as it blows air into my lungs. Wes is counting as he presses on my chest and I can hear that same anxiety in his voice. Jesus, this hurts! They don’t tell you in first aid that all this pushing will hurt. I open my eyes and watch him work for a second or two, seeing sweat trickle down his face and it reminds me of Angel.

Then I cough up that final gout of ocean, and I can breathe again. “I’m back,” I croak out, struggling with the pain of my bruised ribs and wondering for a moment how long he’d been at it. He’s alone, at least, and I’m on the floor again. What a weird trip.

Wes falls backwards, startled and relieved and tired. In fact, he looks to be on the verge of collapse. “Oh, thank God. Thank you, God.” He starts to cry, hiding his face in his hands and quietly weep.

Holding my arm across my chest, wincing as I reach the other out to him, I say, “Thank you, Wesley.” He may not have heard me, but he grasps my hand with frantic strength.

We have a lot to do, but for the moment, we both just rest.


End file.
